Sunday, April 29, 2018

Stars Align: A Few Words About The New Belly Album (Yes, I Said The New Belly Album)

I don't think anyone was losing sleep waiting for a Belly reunion. Sure, some of us positively lovedStar in 1993 and King in 1995, but it's doubtful that there seemed a need for the band to return, especially considering Tanya Donelly's consistent career as a solo artist.

Still, there's reason to rejoice as the band -- Donelly, Thomas Gorman on guitars, Gail Greenwood on bass, and Chris Gorman on drums -- have reconvened to present us with the surprisingly melodic Dove, due for release next Friday. If the record doesn't quite punch with the intermittent ferocity found on those earlier 2 releases, it at least succeeds remarkably well as a showcase for the talents of Tanya Donelly, one of the most formidable band-leaders from the heyday of alt-rock.

The lyrical "Stars Align" finds Donelly offering up that familiar mixture of vulnerability and bravado found in her best vocal performances, as the band revs up comfortably behind her, while the easy-to-love "Girl" features a hook to die for. Elsewhere, the mid-tempo "Artifact" sounds a tiny bit like something from The Pretenders, while the more expansive "Human Child" takes more risks musically than one might expect to find on a Belly record. Some of this ("Suffer the Fools", "Quicksand") is going to sound very familiar to anyone who's been following Tanya Donelly's solo career, but stuff like "Army of Clay" has a kick that echoes those earlier, great Belly recordings, and suggests that these players are still capable of firing on all cylinders when the material's right.

A record full of of modest successes, Dove sees Belly offer up an album that's not only an extension of the sound of the band's earlier releases, but also a set of many reminders of what a fantastic singer Tanya Donelly is, and how much joy her voice can continue to bring listeners.

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About Me

I write about stuff I like.
Born in Washington, D.C., in 1967, I spent most of my life in Maryland before I moved to Hong Kong at the very end of 2011. I worked in Kowloon, and lived on Lamma Island, for nearly 3 years, and then I moved back to Maryland with my wife at the end of August 2014. When I was younger, I worked in 3 record stores in College Park, Maryland, from 1987 to 1990 and those jobs gave me a lot of joy, as well as a musical education. I was once a huge fan of the cinema of Hong Kong, especially Shaw Brothers titles. An Anglophile, I still gravitate to British films and music. My youth was spent on Marvel comics, and Starlog and Famous Monsters magazines; Universal and Hammer horror movies; the work of Ray Harryhausen; classic American films of the 1930s; Hanna-Barbera cartoons; music from the glory days of American AM radio; lousy TV reruns; Mego toys; and Godzilla flicks...